


Crux of the matter

by sweetlikesugar



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Choking, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Introspection, Kevin Day Centric, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:16:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22160929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetlikesugar/pseuds/sweetlikesugar
Summary: Kevin watches Andrew as Andrew watches Josten.
Relationships: Kevin Day & Andrew Minyard, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 36
Kudos: 122





	Crux of the matter

Josten...is a lot of things.

A wild child. Lacking self-preservation instinct. Keeping a lot of secrets. Skittish as all fuck. Mouthy, rude and stupid. An amateur with potential.

He’s also holding a majority of Andrew’s attention. When Andrew is lucid enough between his manic upswings and medicated dumps, he watches Josten like he wants to solve him. Andrew always liked games, liked watching people and learn what makes them tick and what makes them break. He liked scattered puzzles, missing pieces, incomplete pictures. Searching, finding, solving. 

Kevin watches Andrew as Andrew watches Josten.

* * *

Kevin didn’t think much of anything when Josten first came to Palmetto. He was a new piece on the board, a cog spinning out of tune with everyone else. It wasn’t weird that Andrew was watching him, not when Josten told him and Aaron apart without a single conversation, not when he lied to Wymack easy as breathing.

He was watching Josten too, quantifying his skills and shifting his strategies to put Josten on the court to their best advantage. 

And then Andrew takes Josten to Columbia and Eden’s Twilight. And then he snarls at Nicky about a drunken mistake. That's not when Kevin starts feeling untethered.

It’s when Josten starts _asking_ and Andrew starts agreeing.

Because then Josten is getting comfortable. Snarking, biting and calling them out. Antagonising Aaron. Calling Kevin a coward.

Which is pretty rich coming from him, considering Josten has never said a single truth in his entire life. 

And he keeps asking. And Andrew keeps agreeing.

_“And that’s the crux of the matter,”_ Kevin thinks, absentmindedly circling the rim of the bottle he’s holding between his thighs, curled up on a sofa in the common room, watching tv with unseeing eyes. That Josten asks like it’s nothing. That Andrew _gives_ like it’s nothing.

It’s never nothing.

Because when Andrew gives it’s not because someone asked, it’s because Andrew wanted to.

Like he gave Aaron loyalty he never asked for, not when it came with the cruel ultimatum and ended up with Tilda dead.

Like he gave Kevin a bottle, a vice he never asked for but a vice that’s now holding him hostage.

Kevin remembers seeing Andrew right after leaving the Nest. Remembers seeing a person who’s haunted, with walls sky-high and miles thick. An aimless ghost.

He remembers Andrew seeing Kevin-- a wounded animal rather than a person, scared and angry. An exposed nerve, oversensitive and not knowing how to live without fear.

So now apparently Kevin is a coward because Josten said so.

But it’s not Kevin who’s running, always running, always one foot out the door. It’s Josten with his spitfire wit, a little pathological liar, a rabbit trying to be a fox.

He stares down the neck of the bottle and sneers. 

He remembers Andrew watching Josten with medically diluted amusement in the same way he used to watch Kevin kill himself on the court, handicapped.

* * *

Kevin is scared.

Kevin is angry.

Two statements, always true. Always at the same time.

Josten talks to the show host like he doesn’t care if he dies tomorrow. It’s probably true (what does a liar have to lose, after all). And then Riko appears, Kevin’s personal devil popping out from the backstage and Kevin is trapped in a nightmare, in his own idea of hell.

The artificial smile on his face cracks like fine china and he’s turning white under the cakey layer of makeup, heart speeding up and left hand going numb.

When they return to Palmetto Kevin pukes out his fear and chases it with tequila.

* * *

Kevin is a stranger in his own body. His consciousness floats somewhere under the ceiling, batting against a lamp like a suicidal moth until a knee knocks into his own.

His drink glides against the curve of his glass in slow motion like The Great Wave off Kanagawa and then spills over his hand in a blink of an eye. Kevin’s soul slips back between his ribs and he raises his head to see Aaron scowling at him.

“You okay?”.

Kevin wipes his hand on his jeans and it feels choppy, like a stop motion animation. It takes him a while to remember where he is, and then he looks around seeking Andrew on reflex before he realizes he and Josten ran off to the roof.

“Yeah”.

Aaron looks at him like he doesn’t believe him but that’s okay, Kevin doesn’t believe himself either. But the thing about Aaron is that he doesn’t pry, just unwraps Kevin’s stiff fingers from around the glass lingering long enough that Kevin feels the gesture for the comfort that it is and puts the glass on his side of the couch.

He goes out to smoke just so he can pretend it’s Andrew he’s tasting, hiding in the shadows so that he’s impossible to see from the roof where two pairs of feet swing from the ledge and two cigarettes glow above like dying stars.

* * *

_“And that’s the crux of the matter,”_ Kevin thinks when Andrew holds him by the throat, a tip of a blade in the deadliest spot between his ribs.

Josten is gone, leaving behind nothing but his gym bag and a heartfelt letter and there’s no doubt in Kevin’s mind that for all the running Josten didn’t manage to outrun his secrets (the filthy little liar, skeletons in his closet spilling, spilling, _spilling--_ ).

Everyone is yelling but Kevin only has eyes for Andrew who holds him closer than he’s ever had since Josten stepped his foot in Palmetto, hazel eyes blazing with a fury that comes from helplessness. He looks mere seconds from losing his mind.

Kevin is intimately acquainted with this particular emotion.

_“What’s left of your promises?”_ he thinks, corner of his mouth ticking upwards and Andrew traces the gesture with his eyes. Kevin feels drunk on the attention.

_“When did I become something to protect Josten from?”_ he thinks, lips parting around a breath he can’t catch, tightness in his chest both from lack of air and resentment (he promised, promised, promised, liar, liar, _LIAR--_ ).

Andrew’s eyes widen minutely and he lets Kevin go, leaving him to cough and gulp air greedily. 

Aaron moves to Kevin’s side, strung with tension, torn in his loyalty.

Kevin looks back at Andrew, watches a man he once thought will protect Kevin from demons inside and outside his head. 

Kevin thinks it’s the first time he’s seen Andrew so scared for someone in that bone-chilling way that clutches your lungs in a vice grip and _doesn’t let go._

Kevin is well acquainted with this type of fear. Lives with it every day.

But apparently, Kevin is a coward. 

“You didn’t have to choke him out to figure out he doesn’t know anything” Aaron rolls his eyes but his mouth creases in displeasure. “The only person who knows what the fuck is going on with Josten _i_ _s Josten_ ”.

Andrew doesn’t take his eyes off Kevin. They slide from his open lips to the reddening imprint on his throat.

There’s no remorse. Just righteous fury.

_(Promised, liar, liar, liar)._

Kevin didn’t expect anything else.

* * *

  
  


Josten looks tortured. Literally tortured, more burns than skin. He looks only at Andrew when he offers to leave and looks only at Andrew when he waits for an answer.

Andrew 

_disagrees._

* * *

  
  


Kevin’s only memento is a collar of bruises and a bitter aftertaste. 

He raises a bottle to his lips and catches Aaron’s slanted grimace. He doesn’t know what it means. He doesn’t think he cares.

  
  
  
  


And that’s the crux of the matter.

**Author's Note:**

> i'll pepper in the fact i dont like neil josten  
> edit: apparently this is a Hot Take. if anyone feels the need to comment on my personal dislike for neil josten i will kindly redirect you either to my tumblr or to the void. that being said: comment and leave kudos if you enjoyed! you can hit me up on [ tumblr](https://mindlesslittlefreak.tumblr.com) or [ twitter](https://twitter.com/raccoon_dad) if you wanna talk


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